The White House News

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, R-Mich, refused on Wednesday to answer multiple questions about the pro-Palestinian rallying cry “from the river to the sea” and whether she is antisemitic — after the White House said the use of the phrase can be antisemitic.

Fox News’ Hillary Vaughn quizzed the Palestinian-American lawmaker, asking her if she regrets using the phrase. 

“Congresswoman, do you regret using the phrase “from the river to the sea”? – It’s used by terrorists to call for the genocide of the Jewish people? Do you regret using it?” Vaughn said.

Tlaib did not respond.

RASHIDA TLAIB PRESSED TO EXPLAIN ‘FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA’ PHRASING AFTER HOUSE VOTES TO CENSURE HER

Vaughn then noted comments by the White House this week, in which Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre called the phrase divisive and hurtful and that “many find it antisemitic.”

Vaughn then asked Tlaib, “Are you antisemitic, Congresswoman Tlaib” five times, each time receiving no answer.

Tlaib posted to social media recently and said the phrase was about “peaceful coexistence.”

“From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity,” she wrote on X.

Tlaib was censured in the Republican-controlled House in a 234-188 vote last week, on a resolution in which she was accused of “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.”

Critics have said the “from the river to the sea” phrase implicitly involves the destruction of Israel.

“It is fundamentally a call for a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, territory that includes the State of Israel, which would mean the dismantling of the Jewish state,” the Anti-Defamation League’s website says. “It is an antisemitic charge denying the Jewish right to self-determination, including through the removal of Jews from their ancestral homeland.”

In 2020, the antisemitism watchdog, StopAntisemitism, blasted Tlaib for retweeting the phrase, calling it “code for eradicating the State of Israel and its millions of Jews.”

The phrase has also received sharp criticism from others, including former counterterrorism expert Nathan Sales, who said last month that when protestors chant “Palestine from the river to the sea,” they are really calling for the “extermination of the Jewish state.”

“They think that Israel shouldn’t exist at all,” Nathan Sales told Fox News’ “Sunday Night in America.” “This is exterminationist rhetoric and our First Amendment means that we have to tolerate this kind of speech, but the antidote for that kind of abhorrent speech is more speech. We need to expose what these Hamas sympathizers are really all about.”

Fox News’ Aubrie Spady, Brandon Gillespie, and Hanna Penreck contributed to this report.

Both Democrats and Republicans in the Virginia Senate picked veteran legislators Wednesday to lead their respective caucuses beginning in next year’s legislative session.

Senate Democrats selected Scott Surovell, an attorney from Fairfax County, to serve as majority leader, the caucus said in a news release. He’ll succeed outgoing Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, who in February announced he would not seek reelection.

Democrats not only held on to the majority they’ve had in the 40-member upper chamber since 2020 in this month’s legislative elections but also flipped control of the House of Delegates, dashing Republicans’ hopes of a GOP trifecta with Gov. Glenn Youngkin. But Democrats will control the Senate by the narrowest possible margin — 21-19 — with Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears presiding over the chamber and casting tie-breaking votes.

SOROS-BACKED DA LOSES TO GOP CHALLENGER AS PROSECUTOR ELECTIONS BECOME BATTLEGROUNDS

Surovell, who has served in the General Assembly since 2010, said in a statement that Senate Democrats would “fight to fulfill the trust Virginia voters placed in our caucus to make Virginia a thriving, inclusive, progressive Commonwealth and the best state in America to raise a family and to start a business.”

Sen. Mamie Locke of Hampton, another veteran legislator, had also been competing for the role and had the endorsements of both the Virginia NAACP and Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. Locke, who was elected caucus chair, did not immediately comment.

Senate Republicans, who grew their caucus by one member this election cycle, tapped Ryan McDougle of Hanover to serve as GOP leader, according to a news release.

VIRGINIA DEMOCRATIC REP. ABIGAIL SPANBERGER TO LEAVE SWING DISTRICT TO RUN FOR GOVERNOR

McDougle, also an attorney, has been a member of the Senate since 2006 and served in the House before that, from 2002-2006.

“We have a talented team of experienced lawmakers and skilled newcomers who are prepared to advance our positive agenda of fighting inflation, lowering taxes, supporting law enforcement, and getting energy prices under control. We will be working collaboratively with Governor Youngkin to promote his priorities, and we are determined to thwart partisan obstructionism,” McDougle said in a statement.

Both chambers of the part-time Legislature will see massive turnover come January due to a combination of retirements and election losses. In the Senate, almost half of the members will be new.

The Democratic and Republican House caucuses held their leadership elections over the weekend. Del. Don Scott will serve as the next speaker of the House, becoming the first Black person to hold the post. And Del. Todd Gilbert, who serves as speaker, will become Republican leader in January.

The United States allowed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for pauses in the fighting within Gaza to pass despite a lack of condemnation for Hamas.

Fifteen members of the security council passed the resolution Wednesday, which calls for a cease-fire for a “sufficient number of days” in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas. The resolution also calls for the “unconditional release” of hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

Twelve members of the council voted in favor of the resolution, while the U.S., Russia and Britain, who have veto power, abstained from the vote Wednesday.

The resolution doesn’t include a condemnation of Hamas’ actions. It attempted to pass a resolution four times before the council was successful.

UN FORMALLY CONDEMNS ISRAEL BUT STAYS MUM ON HAMAS TERRORIST ATTACKS: WATCHDOG

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in her explanation of the vote that the U.S., “could not vote yes on a text that did not condemn Hamas or reaffirm the right of all Member States to protect their citizens from terrorist attacks.”

“Although the United States is deeply disappointed by what is not in this text, we support many of the important provisions this Council has adopted,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “For starters, while this text does not include a condemnation of Hamas, this is the first time we have ever adopted a resolution that even mentions the word ‘Hamas.’”

Anne Bayefsky, director for the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, criticized the vote in a comment to Fox News Digital.

“In an outrageous display of moral chaos and diplomatic cowardice, the Biden administration threw Israel under the bus at the UN Security Council. Almost six weeks after the barbaric attacks of October 7th the Council has finally acted for the first time, and incredibly refused to condemn Hamas,” Bayefsky said. “The Council resolution said the hostages were ‘held by Hamas and other groups’ — not that they were raped, mutilated and kidnapped by Hamas. It never mentioned Israel’s UN Charter right of self-defense. It refers only to civilians ‘in Gaza’ and never in Israel. It never mentions ongoing rocket attacks against Israelis. And yet the Biden administration refused to veto it.”

A THIRD OF THE SENATE CALLS ON UN AMBASSADOR TO DESIGNATE HAMAS A TERROR GROUP AFTER OCT. 7 ATTACKS

“The United States voted the same way as that moral stalwart Russia and merely abstained. It is shocking, morally bankrupt and bodes very badly for the future of humanity, since make no mistake: use of the United Nations to invert right and wrong is just as bad for Americans as it is for Israelis,” Bayefsky added.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan called the resolution, “disconnected from reality and is meaningless.”

“Regardless of what the Council decides, Israel will continue acting according to international law while the Hamas terrorists will not even read the resolution at all, let alone abide by it. It is unfortunate that the Council continues to ignore, not condemn, or even mention the massacre that Hamas carried out on Oct. 7, which led to the war in Gaza. It is truly shameful!” Erdan said. “Hamas’s strategy is to deliberately deteriorate the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and increase the number of Palestinian casualties in order to motivate the UN and the Security Council to stop Israel. 

“It will not happen. Israel will continue to act until Hamas is destroyed and the hostages are returned.”

A nominee for a district judgeship in Oklahoma struggled during her nomination hearing on Wednesday to define basic terms for orders issued regularly by judges.

Sara E. Hill, who is nominated by President Biden to be the district judge for the Northern District of Oklahoma, was grilled by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., on the Senate Judiciary Committee about basic legal and Constitutional terms and definitions – a practice that’s become usual for him in recent months after several nominees have struggled to pass his tests.

When Kennedy asked Hill the difference between a “stay” order and an “injunction” order – two orders frequently issued by federal courts – Hill stumbled through her answers. 

“A stay order would prohibit, um, sorry. An injunction would restrain the parties from taking action. A stay order … I’m not sure I can, actually can, can give you that,” she said.

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An injunction is an order from the court that prohibits a party in a case from performing or ordering a specified act as the case continues, either temporarily or permanently, sometimes referred to as a temporary restraining order.

A stay order is issued to stop the legal proceedings of a case in court.

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Carrie Severino, constitutional lawyer and president of the Judicial Crisis Network, commented on X (formerly Twitter) about the exchange by saying, “How can an individual who wants to be a federal judge possibly not know this?”

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“Stays and injunctions come before district judges all of the time. This is not a trick question,” she added.

Severino noted that at the end of Kennedy’s probe, committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., “even congratulated Hill afterward for ‘passing the Kennedy bar exam’ – talk about grading on a curve!”

Judge Lina Hidalgo — a Democrat in Harris County, Texas, the third-largest county in the U.S. — is no longer denying she used encrypted messaging apps to conduct county business, despite being called out for doing so for multi-million-dollar contracts in 2021.

FOX 26 Houston reported that last week, Texas Rangers were granted five additional search warrants to investigate bid-rigging in Harris County.

In 2021, Hidalgo faced intense scrutiny over an $11 million vaccine outreach contract to Elevate Strategies, run by Felicity Pereyra, a Democratic political insider with ties to the county commissioners’ court. Pereyra also worked on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Pereyra’s company was a one-woman operation until recently and had only existed for two years before being awarded the contract.

LEADER OF TEXAS’ LARGEST COUNTY TAKES TEMPORARY LEAVE OF ABSENCE TO SEEK DEPRESSION TREATMENT

Pereyra’s company was awarded the contract over UT Health, one of the city’s major hospitals, and the “deciders” for the contract all answered directly to Hidalgo without input from the commissioners’ panel.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg’s office subpoenaed Hidalgo regarding the contract, and when asked about the subpoena, an attorney for Hidalgo told local press, “We have always followed the law, and we continue to follow the law.”

A mix of industry experts and county officials told FOX 26 that Elevate Strategies did not even meet the basic requirements to engage in an endeavor of this scope. Additionally, the experts and officials said that there was no way that Elevate Strategies could have met the strict financial requirements for bidding on county contracts.

HIGH-PROFILE HOUSTON DEMOCRATS FACE CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS

Harris County requires annual billing records dating back five years as well as an audited income statement and a qualifying balance sheet.

But Elevate Strategies reportedly wasn’t required to provide financial statements during the bidding process.

A spokesperson for Hidalgo previously told FOX 26 that Pereyra’s firm has worked with the county on projects before, including the most recent census.

Hidalgo canceled the deal amid scrutiny, but thousands of dollars were still paid to Elevate Strategies by the county as the arrangement imploded.

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The warrants issued to Texas Rangers last week claim Hidalgo was communicating with her chief of staff on WhatsApp regarding county business, specifically, the multi-million-dollar COVID communication contract, which led to the criminal indictment of three of her top aides.

In May 2022, Hidalgo denied using encrypted messaging apps to communicate for business.

“Man. I have Slack, I have Signal, I have WhatsApp. I haven’t used them in years,” she said during a press conference.

FOX 26 asked her if she wanted to avoid the potential she could be having government conversations in “basically a technological black box,” and she responded, “I told you. I don’t have governmental conversations on Signal.”

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This week, the station reportedly reminded Hidalgo of what she said in 2022, pressing her to tell the truth.

“We get these search warrants and there are multiple messages between you and your former chief of staff on WhatsApp. So, you want to walk that back? Did that happen,” a FOX 26 staffer asked.

“The question was whether I conducted county business on the Signal app. I do not conduct County Business on the Signal app,” Hidalgo said.

For clarity, the reporter asked Hidalgo if she conducted county business on WhatsApp and other encrypted apps, and was told by Hidalgo, “I already answered the question.”

WhatsApp claims on its website that it offers “end-to-end encryption” for personal messages, adding that calls are secure.

“Only you and the person you’re talking to can read or listen to them, not even WhatsApp,” the company claims on its site.

By encrypting the messages, journalists and the public have little or no ability to review what should be public records concerning county business.

Also, in Texas, the title of “county judge” is a misnomer. They are not judges in courtrooms but rather presiding officials in their counties who have a big say in spending and are in charge of local emergency response.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

New Jersey will drop a requirement that candidates for public office sign an oath that includes the phrase “so help me God” in filing paperwork for their candidacy.

“The petitioner has the option to make a solemn affirmation or declaration in lieu of an oath,” Lauren Zyriek, acting director of the state’s Division of Elections said in a memo to all county clerks, NJ.com reported. 

NEW JERSEY DEMOCRATS KEEP CONTROL OF BOTH CHAMBERS IN STATE LEGISLATURE

The Oct. 24 memo came after Bergen County resident 70-year-old James Tosone — who hopes to run for Congress as a Libertarian — filed a federal lawsuit against Secretary of State Tahesha Way, claiming New Jersey forces people who run for office to swear to a religious oath.

In his lawsuit, Tosone, a resident of Washington Township, claimed that his conscience would not let him swear to God, the newspaper said. 

“By requiring plaintiff to swear ‘so help me God,’ in order to run for public office, without a secular option, the secretary of state has inflicted, and will continue to inflict, irreparable harm upon (Tosone),” the suit states.

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Zyriek’s memo states that “in the affirmation or declaration, the words ‘so help me God’ shall be omitted.”

Tosone dropped his lawsuit this week. 

The crucial general election battleground state of New Hampshire is upholding tradition and disregarding likely penalties from national Democrats by holding its presidential primary first.

A nearly year-long battle between New Hampshire and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over the timing of the state’s century-old, first-in-the-nation presidential primary came to a culmination on Wednesday.

“The date of the New Hampshire first-in-the-nation presidential primary will be Jan. 23,” Secretary of State Dave Scanlan announced in front of a crowd of national and local reporters, state officials, political leaders and dignitaries crowded into the Hall of Flags at the Statehouse in Concord.

The date that Scanlan announced formally put the state out of compliance with the DNC’s 2024 presidential nominating calendar.

NEW HAMPSHIRE DEMOCRATS DEFY BIDEN, DNC OVER PRIMARY DATE

The state will now face sanctions from the Democrats, which could result in the loss of half of New Hampshire’s delegates to next summer’s national convention. Holding an unsanctioned primary has led President Biden to keep his name off the New Hampshire ballot, but Granite State Democrats have launched a write-in campaign in an attempt to prevent an electoral embarrassment for the president as he runs for a second term in the White House.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, a vocal critic of the move to upend New Hampshire’s cherished role in holding the first presidential primary, warned that “there’s no doubt that citizens all across New Hampshire, especially independents and Democrats, are taking notice that they’re being pushed aside by a national party. No one takes very kindly to that — especially in politics, being told that their voice doesn’t matter like it used to.” 

PHILLIPS TARGETS BIDEN, FELLOW DEMOCRATS OVER BORDER POLICIES AS HE LAUNCHES PRIMARY CHALLENGE AGAINST PRESIDENT

“I have no doubt it will have a lot of effect come November of ’24,” Sununu told reporters.

The governor predicted that “the precedent that President Biden has potentially set is no Democrat will ever dare try to skip New Hampshire again. Because I think it’s really going to hurt President Biden. It’s going to hurt his chances. It hurts the Democratic Party as a whole. They’ve tried every which way to move us off of our law, which we’re obviously not going to do…. Skip New Hampshire at your own peril.”

National Democrats for years have knocked both Iowa — whose caucuses for 50 years led off the party’s nominating calendar — and New Hampshire as unrepresentative of the party as a whole because the states have largely White populations with few major urban areas. Nevada and South Carolina, which in recent cycles have voted third and fourth on the calendar, are much more diverse than either Iowa or New Hampshire. Nevada and South Carolina were added to the Democratic calendar nearly two decades ago to increase the diversity of the early states’ electorate.

While Republicans aren’t making major changes to their schedule, the DNC earlier this year overwhelmingly approved a calendar proposed late last year by Biden to move South Carolina to the lead position on Feb. 3. New Hampshire and Nevada were scheduled to hold primaries three days later, with Iowa entirely losing its early state position. The president and supporters of the new calendar argued that it would empower minority voters, upon whom Democrats have long relied but have at times taken for granted.

To comply with the DNC, New Hampshire would have needed to scrap its state law protecting its first-in-the-nation primary status and expand access to early voting. However, with Republicans in control of the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature, Democrats repeatedly argued that was a non-starter.

Scanlan noted that the date he set “complies with our state statute requiring our presidential primary be at least seven days before any similar event, and it preserves the position of the traditional Iowa caucus.”

The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee — which oversees the party’s presidential nominating calendar — last month ruled that New Hampshire was conditionally noncompliant as the state was expected to announce a primary date outside the DNC’s window.

Scanlan told reporters that he didn’t buy national Democrats’ justification for changing the calendar because “New Hampshire is not racially diverse enough.”

“That is an appealing argument that will certainly impact individuals, but it’s not the real reason why this thing is going on,” 

“New Hampshire doesn’t conform, and there are individuals at the national level — probably in both parties — that would like to be to say, ‘This is going to be the nominee. That’s the best person that has a chance of winning the presidency, and that’s the person we want on the general election ballot.’ New Hampshire is the polar opposite of that,” he argued “When you have a president that decides that he’s not going to put himself on the ballot before the voters of a state that is going to have a nominating event, I think that’s the wrong decision. I think it’s a sad choice.”

Scanlan said, “New Hampshire is for the average person who lives and works on Main Street.” He pushed back against what he claimed was “the national elite telling the voters of this country who’s the nominee’s going to be.”

Scanlan told Fox News that the DNC’s threats were “meaningless.” 

“New Hampshire has a tradition and New Hampshire has a law. And both the tradition and the law were going to be followed no matter what. Now, the DNC will decide whether they are going to sanction New Hampshire somehow because we’re not complying with their calendar,” Scanlan said.

Sununu, pointing to the DNC, told reporters, “Everything they tried failed. We’re going first.”

There are plenty of Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire who see the upending of their lead-off positions as sour grapes from Biden, who finished a disappointing fourth in the 2020 Iowa caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary — before a second-place finish in Nevada and a landslide victory in South Carolina propelled him toward the nomination and eventually the White House.

The president faces long-shot primary challenges from two Democrats who will be on the ballot in New Hampshire.

Three-term Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, formally announced his presidential bid as he filed at the State House on Oct. 27 to place his name on the state’s ballot. Also on the Granite State ballot is the other challenger, bestselling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, who is making her second straight White House run.

While the president, who turns 81 next week, is the commanding front-runner for the nomination, polls indicate Biden faces mounting concerns from Democrats over his age. Those surveys also suggest that many Americans, including plenty of Democrats, don’t want the president to seek a second term in the White House.

There are concerns among Granite Staters that the move by the president and the DNC to revamp the nominating calendar, and his absence from the primary ballot, could lead to a ballot box setback for Biden in New Hampshire.

“Personally, I believe that the president is making a mistake by not putting his name on the ballot here,” Scanlan said.

But longtime New Hampshire based Democrat consultant Jim Demers — a top Biden supporter in the Granite State who’s helping to lead the primary ballot write-in effort on behalf of the president — disagreed with Sununu’s prediction that the battle over the primary date will impact Democrats next November.

“I think once the nomination is locked up, the convention takes place, Joe Biden will be back in New Hampshire campaigning,” Demers told the Monitor.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.